Business News

And with people now dying sooner than expected in Britain, the slowing gains in life expectancy are boosting returns at one of Britain’s leading life insurance and investment companies.

Legal & General, the UK’s largest manager of pension assets, has just reported record profits for last year after it was able to release cash from its retirement business.

An easing off in gains in life expectancy is helping ease Britain’s pension deficits – allowing companies to reduce the amount of money they need to hold for future payouts.

Legal & General was able to release more than £332m (€371m) of mortality reserves. This helped operating profit to climb 32pc to more than £2bn (€2.24bn). Analysts in a company-supplied consensus poll had forecast lower operating profits.